Hostages given 'last chance' by Iraq abductors

A group holding four Western peace activists captive in Iraq since November said it was giving a "last chance" for its demands to be met, according to a new videotape showing the hostages that aired on Al Jazeera news channel.

The Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness gave "a last chance for meeting demands of releasing Iraqi prisoners from the Iraqi and American prisons," Al Jazeera said.

"Or else they will be killed," it said, quoting a statement from the group.

Briton Norman Kember, American Tom Fox and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden were abducted in Baghdad on November 26.

The men were part of a delegation for the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a body which dispatches volunteers to crisis areas in a bid to reduce armed conflict.

The fate of US reporter Jill Carroll also remained uncertain, eight days after the expiration of a deadline to kill her unless all Iraqi women detainees were freed from US custody.

Sunni Arab leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, whom Carroll was supposed to have met on January 7, the day she was snatched, reiterated his call for her release.

"I renew my appeal to the captors of the American journalist to free her immediately following the release of the Iraqi detainees, as they no longer have any argument" to hold her, he said.

The US and Iraqi authorities on Thursday released 419 detainees held without trial, of which five were women. Four Iraqi women continue to be held in US-Iraqi run prisons.

US authorities have denied any link between the release and Carroll's abduction and say they have no new information about the hostage.

Two German engineers seized in Iraq this week appealed Friday to Germany to save their lives, and Dulaimi described their kidnapping as "an insult to Islam."

Rene Braeunlich and Thomas Nitzschke, kidnapped at gunpoint by men in army uniforms, were shown in a video aired by Al Jazeera, surrounded by four masked men brandishing assault rifles from a group calling itself the Followers of Unity and Prophetic Tradition.

They were seized in the restive northern oil refinery city of Baiji, the same area where a Brazilian engineer was kidnapped a year ago - his fate remains unknown.

German weekly Der Speigel said their captors in the video demanded immediate withdrawal of the German embassy in Iraq and release of women detainees.

Al Jazeera had said the kidnappers had not issued any conditions for the men's release.

Last week, two Kenyan telecommunications engineers were kidnapped in Baghdad, but no information has been released on their status or whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr Solagh said that the conservative Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which won the most seats in the December election, plans to take a majority of ministries in the next government.

He said the group also wanted the posts of Iraqi vice president and parliamentary assembly vice president.

"The political consultations are ongoing and the alliance will take half of the ministerial posts, plus one, including three major positions: either defense or interior, in addition to finance and oil," he said.

"We want a government of participation and national unity in which each community will be represented according of its electoral weight," he said.

A key Sunni politician however accused the Shiite coalition of ignoring the broader national interests.

"Most political groups think the creation of a government of national unity is necessary except for the United Iraqi Alliance," said Khalaf al-Alyan, a leader of the Sunni National Concord Front.

The Shiite alliance, he added, "has already announced that it is not interested in parties that don't approve of the constitution, don't want to purge Baathists from public offices and aren't in favor of federalism," he said, naming the three most contentious issues between Sunnis and Shiites.

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance has won 128 seats of the 275 member parliament, followed by 58 seats held by the Sunni Arabs and 53 by the Kurdish Alliance.

On Sunday the trial of Saddam Hussein is set to resume after it was postponed on Tuesday.

A new chief judge, Rauf Rashid Abdel Rahman, will preside after his predecessor Rizkar Mohammed Amin quit over criticism he was too lenient with the defendants.

Three Iraqis were killed in separate insurgent attacks, including a prominent academic Abdel Raziq al-Naas, a policeman and an Iraqi military intelligence officer, while the mayor of the restive northern city of Tal Afar was wounded when rebels attacked his office.